After five years of research and testing, McDonald's launches its McCafes in May. The national launch is considered one of the chain's "biggest" new menu programs since breakfast was introduced in 1970s.

Gavina is a specialty roaster founded by Don Francisco Gavina in 1967. It now generates $100 million in sales, and is run by Gavina's children and grandchildren. McDonald's accounts for 15 percent of its sales.

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Pedro Gavina, president of F. Gavina & Sons, led a tour of his family's Vernon coffee factory. The company supplies 3,000 McDonald's restaurants in the West, including nearly 100 in Orange County.

The green coffee beans flow through a metal detector and a filtering machine to remove debris. Waste such as nails or bullet shells can be found in the burlap bags, making this cleaning process critical. A Gavina worker, shown, holds a handful of "waste" after the beans are cleaned.

Coffee beans are sent to the roaster after they are inspected for quality and cleaned of debris. This is a key step, as the roaster unleashes the individual flavors trapped within each green coffee bean. Gavina has a specific proprietary roasting formula for McDonald's.

After roasting, the beans are cooled and then packed. The process -- from roasting to packing -- takes about 2.5 hours. The beans used for McDonald's McCafes are sourced from three to four countries in Central America and South America. For proprietary reasons, Gavina and McDonald's declined to name the countries where the beans are grown.

The 5-pound foil bags are tightly sealed to block oxygen from entering. Exposure to oxygen decreases the shelf life of the beans. A 5-pound McCafe bag remains fresh for about four months, Pedro Gavina says.

After passing random quality tests, the bags are packed and sent to McDonald's distribution sites. McDonald's restaurants in the West, including those in O.C., get deliveries every three days.

Pedro Gavina holds a bag of McDonald's drip coffee. McDonald's began selling Gavina coffee in 1983. The factory eventually developed a bolder, premium drip for stores in 2005.

After the tour, Pedro Gavina gives us a lesson in the art of coffee cupping. Hot water is poured over coffee grounds. With his nose close to the cup, he dips his spoon through a crusty layer of grounds floating at the top. He sniffs the aroma and "slurps" a spoonful to maximize the tasting.

Tour participant Bonnie Modugno, a dietetic consultant for McDonald's operators in Southern California, gives "cupping" a shot. A professional coffee cupper can pinpoint which country of origin the beans are from with a single sniff.

Gavina President Pedro Gavina holds green coffee beans, freshly plucked from burlap bags shipped from overseas farms. Gavina, based in Vernon near Los Angeles, is one of three vendors in the U.S. that supply McCafe bars for McDonald's.

VERNON For the Gavina family, running a coffee factory isn’t just a livelihood.

It’s a way of life. Just ask Leonor Gavina-Valls, 57.

“When I came home from the hospital, my dad put a little bit of espresso on my pacifier,” said Gavina-Valls, whose father, Don Francisco Gavina, ran a coffee bean farm in Cuba.

From that moment on, Leonor never weaned herself from the family legacy.

Her father eventually trained Leonor and her three brothers (Pedro, Jose and Francisco “Paco”) in how to grow, harvest and roast beans — skills Don Francisco learned from his father.

After emigrating to the U.S. from Cuba, Don Francisco launched F. Gavina & Sons in 1967 in a modest 1,100-square foot roasting factory in Vernon — a gritty industrial town that sits in the shadows of downtown Los Angeles.

Over the past few decades, the Gavina children have taken over the business — turning the factory into one of the biggest specialty coffee roasters in the nation. A new, modern 240,000-square-foot facility cranks out more than 32 million pounds of roasted coffee a year for dozens of restaurants and grocery stores.

Its biggest customers are McDonald’s, Costco and 7-Eleven. Gavina also supplies dozens of Vietnamese cafes in Orange County. By far its greatest legacy likely will be its ties to the world’s most famous burger chain.

In 1983, Gavina began selling drip coffee to a handful of McDonald’s restaurants in Southern California. Eventually, Gavina partnered with McDonald’s to create a stronger drip coffee in 2005 — a move that triggered “double-digit growth” in the chain’s coffee sales, McDonald’s said.

The premium drip coffee success led to an even bigger break for Gavina: McDonald’s selected Gavina and two other U.S. coffee suppliers to produce espresso for its new McCafe program. The other McCafe vendors are S&D Coffee, Inc. and Distant Lands Coffee.

Gavina now serves more than 3,000 McDonald’s McCafes in the West — including 98 in Orange County. Launched nationally in May, McCafes offer McDonald’s customers espresso drinks such as mochas, cappuccinos and lattes at prices much cheaper than Starbucks.

McDonald’s has declined to offer sales data for the ambitious coffee program. However, officials said in the first weekend after the May launch “we sold more than 2 million cups of McCafe coffee.”

“This has been one of our biggest launches since we introduced breakfast in 1975,” said Karen Garcia, vice president of quality, service and cleanliness for Southern California McDonald’s restaurants.

For Gavina, that means the pressure is on to meet McDonald’s tough standards. Every batch of McDonald’s McCafe espresso beans must be roasted to the same exact formula every day to maintain consistency.

In other words, a latte in Las Vegas should taste no different than a latte in Los Alamitos.

“Most people are not even close to the (quality control) standards of McDonald’s,” said Pedro Gavina, president of Gavina.

Still, McDonald’s isn’t the company’s main revenue generator.

A bulk of Gavina’s $100 million in annual revenue comes from the sale of private label brands such as Don Francisco, Gavina Gourmet and Café La Llave espresso.

McDonald’s coffee business accounts for 15 percent of sales. But being linked to the huge brand has given the Gavina family a jolt that will, no doubt, keep Don Francisco’s legacy going for generations, says Leonor, who drinks about three to four cups of coffee and espresso shots a day.

“McDonald’s has given us the opportunity to prove ourselves.”

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Orange County Register reporters and selected guests were invited recently to tour Gavina’s 10-acre roasting facility. Along with her brother Pedro, Leonor Gavina-Valls gave us a glimpse of how a McCafe latte is born – from a vacuum-like cleaning of the beans to testing the espresso in “cupping” sessions.

Nancy Luna is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years reporting experience. She's been the Register's restaurant beat writer since 2005, covering some of the biggest players in the industry: In-N-Out, Chipotle, McDonald’s and Taco Bell. Luna also covers dining trends from food halls to food trucks. She writes with authority and is considered an expert in her field.

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